Strength In Numbers

Mobs of a kind stick together.

Strength In Numbers gives Minecraft's mobs herds. Hit a cow and its herd stampedes. Spook a sheep and the flock bunches up, then bolts. Pick a fight with a llama and its herd spits back. Zombies that find you in threes stop shambling in single file and close in from several sides, while skeletons hold their fire rather than shoot their own.

Icon: "Cow", "Sheep", and "Chicken" by Delapouite, from game-icons.net, licensed under CC BY 3.0. [Modified.]

What each herd does

• Cows and mooshrooms stampede as one when a member is hurt.
• Horses, donkeys, and mules follow an old leader, freeze when they spot a wolf, then bolt; hurt one and the herd stampedes.
• Sheep huddle around their lambs, then flee.
• Pigs, rabbits, foxes, turtles, striders, and camels scatter and run.
• Chickens panic every which way, and some flap into the air.
• Llamas, goats, polar bears, and pandas defend the herd. Goats ram.
• Zombies, husks, zombie villagers, and wither skeletons hunt in packs: three or more join one another's attacks and flank you. A pack that loses half its members falls back, regroups, and comes again.
• Skeletons and strays join the attack but hold fire while a herd mate is in the way.
• Spiders and cave spiders gang up; witches join one another's fights.
• Animals that wander off drift back to their herd.

Wolves, piglins, hoglins, illagers, and other mobs that already act as groups in vanilla are left as they are.

Your farm is safe

Animals you keep never join a herd: leashed, name-tagged, tamed, saddled, ridden, and player-bred animals, and llamas in a caravan, stay put, and when you hit one it panics the vanilla way. Wild animals you fenced in still herd until you breed or name them. On Peaceful, no herd reaction makes a mob target you.

Make it yours

• Rules for every species live in data packs or in config/strengthinnumbers/rules/, which always wins. Change radius and herd size, turn reactions on or off, combine them, or give mobs from other mods a herd. A full guide with copy-paste examples is written to config/strengthinnumbers/RULES.md.
• Mod authors and modpack creators can ship rules in a data pack or in their mod's data/<namespace>/herd_rules/ folder: herds for their own mobs, or new behavior for vanilla ones. A rule for a mob that is not installed does nothing, so one pack can cover optional mods. Players' own rules in the config folder still win.
• Settings in config/strengthinnumbers/strengthinnumbers.json, or on a settings screen through Mod Menu in single player, applied without a restart: herds on or off, how often mobs check their herd, debug logging, and a switch for every reaction.

Requirements and compatibility

• Minecraft 1.20.1, Fabric.
• Requires Stope, which requires Fabric API: install both alongside it.
• Server-side: players can join without it. Install it on the client too for the settings screen in single player.
• Built to stay light: a benchmark with 1,200 animals, 1,000 of them penned, added about half a millisecond per server tick on the developer's machine.
• Does not start alongside HerdsPanic, Herd Mentality, Herd Instinct, Herd Hysteria, or Animals herding, which change the same behavior. Remove one.
• Works with TrailWright: herds wear trails faster, as you would expect.
• Forge 1.20.1: the same Strength In Numbers and Stope jars, plus Sinytra Connector and Forgified Fabric API. Tested on Forge 47.4.28 with Connector 1.0.0-beta.49.

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Scott Killen. All rights reserved. You may play it, run it on your own servers, include it unmodified in free modpacks on Modrinth or CurseForge, and feature it in videos, streams, and reviews; see LICENSE for the full terms. For anything else, ask at KillenCraft@pm.me. The icon keeps its own license (CC BY 3.0, above).